Today we’re pleased to feature artwork by Mya Kerner! Kerner received a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Environmental Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD). From 2011 to 2014, Mya worked primarily in cast metal sculpture at Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum (Solsberry, IN), Akademia Sztuk Pięknych (Gdańsk, Poland), and Sloss Metal Arts (Birmingham, AL). She now maintains a full-time studio practice, investigating memory and place by integrating her study of Earth-based traditions. Her visual art oscillates between two- and three-dimensions, as she explores ancestry, storytelling, and ecological concern through depictions of the landscape. Mya is represented by Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle, WA.
Statement
My work revolves around ancestral history, storytelling, and ecological concern in an exploration of memory and landscape. Referencing specific landscapes, I work to depict each place somewhere between reality and memory. In my paintings, empty space meets fields of muted color through shattered lines of graphite, suggesting a continuous cycle of transformation. I hope to create an oscillation, both visual and narrative, reminiscent of recalling a dream upon waking.
The sculpture and installation work pulls at the contours of my paintings, extruding lines into three-dimensional forms. The resulting pieces often hang on a fragile, yet balanced, interdependence. Although I think at least a hint of crisis is important in contemporary landscapes, my intention within is not to create an overly dramatic fragmentation or sense of falling apart, but for this disintegration to pull the viewer into a contemplation of the land and their place within it.
My background in permaculture and a lineage of Eastern European foresters first drove me to explore humanity’s relationship with the natural world through my art practice. More recently, I have expanded on these ideas, reacting to anthropocentrism and a sense of uprootedness, both personal and intergenerational, by studying Earth-based traditions. As I reflect upon stories from the spirits of the land, my own memory, and those of my ancestors, I ask questions about how we relate to place through the lenses of wildness, stewardship, civilization, and change. I work towards reciprocity in my relationship with the forces of nature.
Learn more at https://myakerner.com/
Follow the artist on Instagram @mya_kerner_art!
